And If My Heart Should Somehow Stop
by bravevulnerability
Summary: 'Kate releases another laugh, but it catches in her throat when she notices Castle clutching at his chest again, the globe dropping back to bounce across the hardwood as he grips the nearby table to stay standing.' Beckett's prank has some unexpected consequences. AU insert for 8x21, 'Hell to Pay'.
Castle's consistent typing usually lulled her to sleep like a lullaby, the sounds of a story coming alive consistent and soothing, but she knows that tonight, he wasn't writing Nikki Heat, that he had been obsessively scouring the internet for the last two hours searching for answers on an antichrist. And while she also knew his concern over his imminent death was true, she couldn't help the urge to toy with his paranoia, to mess with him for the sake of a laugh.

Sneaking out of their bed without him noticing is easy, tiptoeing her way through the loft without him hearing effortless, and Kate holds her breath after she sets the plastic globe in the living room spinning, waits for him to emerge from his office with his homemade pencil and chewing gum crucifix to investigate.

He falls for the trick with ease, stilling the globe and turning slowly at the sound of her rasping groan, shouting in fear when he turns to find her standing there, the globe flying from his hands to bounce along the hardwood.

"Gotcha," she gets out through her laughter, snapping her fingers to her amusement, but Castle looks wholly offended.

"Not funny, Beckett. I am being targeted by dark forces," he reminds her with a hand to his chest, attempting to calm what she presumes is a galloping heart. "I am serious, I can _feel_ it."

"Okay, fine," she concedes. "Can you just feel it in the morning? Because it's late." And she really just wants to crawl back into bed with her husband at her back. "Let's go to bed."

"Yeah, just give me a few minutes," he grumbles, bending to retrieve the globe from the ground, and she shouldn't, she really shouldn't, but she sees the perfect opportunity to make him jump one more time…

Castle straightens into a standing position, just in time for his feet to nearly leave the floor as she appears in front of him once more, her surprise "Boo!" startling him so harshly he stumbles backwards.

Kate releases another laugh, but it catches in her throat when she notices Castle clutching at his chest again, the globe dropping back to bounce across the hardwood as he grips the nearby table to stay standing.

"Rick?" she calls, stepping forward to steady him, but his legs give out beneath him, dragging them both to the floor, and her heart goes painfully still, her entire sternum seizing. "Castle? Castle, what's wrong?"

He's blinking hard, his right hand attempting to reach for her, but continuing to miss, and Kate cups his face in her palms, noticing with horror drenching her insides like ice water how one side is slack while the other remains untouched.

"Think have… have think a… Kate?"

Her hands tremble as she reaches into his pocket, grateful when her guess is correct and she finds his phone inside. Her fingers fly across the screen, her demands for an ambulance to their address racing past her lips on autopilot, while Castle tilts further into the cradle of her palm still fitted to his cheek.

"Castle, paramedics will be here soon," she promises, feeling his fingers twitch at her thigh, curling into the fabric of her yoga pants.

God, what had she done?

"Just hold on, just - please just stay with me until they get here," she breathes, balancing on her knees at his side, finding his hand at her leg and squeezing. "Please, I - I'm so sorry, Castle. I'm sorry."

He releases a gentle noise of protest, his eyes a cloudy blue, unable to focus, but his fingers squeeze around hers, and Kate places her free hand to his chest. His heart pounds hard beneath her palm, his lungs straining for oxygen, each breath he sucks in rasping its way down his throat, and she refuses to cry, to succumb to the suffocating fear expanding through her sternum, taking up all the space, not while he's fighting to breathe.

If she had given her husband a heart attack, a potential stroke even, all for the sake of a laugh? She would never forgive herself.

* * *

The paralyzing sensation of dizziness through his skull, numbness through the right side of his body, passes within minutes, practically gone by the time the paramedics rush through their front door to treat him. No more double vision as they shine a light in his eyes, the ability to properly form words returning to his lips, feeling lacing through his fingers.

Kate had jerked out of the way the second the medical professional had stepped inside, and now, while he sits on a stool at the breakfast bar with a glass of juice and the medic taking his blood pressure, he can hear his wife talking with the second of the two EMTs, the condition known as "transient ischemic attack" the topic of their conversation.

He'd had a mini stroke and Kate was certain it was her fault, but after talking with the paramedics, he was certain it was his. He's been so focused on getting his wife back, on securing their life together, saving it from LokSat, so busy with the P.I office and the cases he's been allowed to work with Beckett and the boys over the last few weeks. His body had finally had enough.

Kate playing an innocent prank on him hadn't been the cause, it had just been the final straw after months worth of buildup, the trigger to a reaction already set in motion. But he doesn't believe for a second that Beckett will view it that way.

"Sir, this condition is usually a warning sign. Your chances of having an actual, full blown stroke in the future are significantly higher, you do know that, right?" the paramedic, Mark, he thinks was the name, inquires, the ripping sound of velcro crackling through the air as the man removes the strap from Castle's arm. "Though, in this case, lowering your cholesterol, your blood pressure, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and increasing your rest could reverse the effect, lower your chances."

Rest. That sounded heavenly. Resting in bed with Kate pressed against his side, no worries about deadly conspiracies or crazy cases to trouble his mind, his body.

But at the moment, his wife won't touch him, won't even come near him or meet his gaze across the room.

"I can do that," Rick nods, finishing the last of his juice to aid his blood sugar in rising before he does too, testing his balance and finding his footing holds steady. Back to normal.

Beckett's arms are folded tightly across her chest, her lips pursed in a thin line as she nods along to what the other paramedic has to say, shaking the man's hand in gratitude once he's done and heading towards the front door.

"Don't hesitate to call if you need anything else, Captain. And Mr. Castle, please follow up with a doctor's appointment as soon as possible," Mark calls over his shoulder as he and his colleague make their leave, and Rick nods his assent.

But it's Beckett who replies. "We'll go first thing in the morning. Thank you both."

The front door eases shut, leaving them alone in the midnight darkness, and Castle glances over to her, but Kate is still avoiding his gaze.

"Come on, Castle. You really need to sleep," she sighs, scraping a hand through her hair, and his head bobs with agreement, but when he steps forward to take her hand, lead her to their bedroom, Kate draws it away.

Her eyes flicker towards him, away again just as quickly, and then she's bypassing him for the kitchen.

"Go on ahead, I'm going to get you some water, just in case."

He frowns, wants to say something, but she's already reaching for a glass, the pitcher of water in the fridge, and the best thing he could probably do in this moment is head back to their bedroom and wait for her.

Rick settles into his untouched side of the bed, slips beneath the sheets and the comforter and sighs in relief as his body sinks into the mattress. He's quite certain Beckett will clear her entire workday tomorrow just to accompany him to the doctor, needing to be there through every test, present for every tidbit of information, and he's secretly grateful. He hated going to the doctor alone.

But he's also stable, he would make it through the night without issue; Kate seems reluctant to believe that, though, the anxiety in her eyes flaring in the moonlight once she returns with the promised water in hand.

"Kate, I'm okay," he tells her as she places the glass on his nightstand, but she doesn't answer, doesn't even acknowledge that he's spoken. "I just got a little overwhelmed, pushed a little too hard over the last few months-"

"Because of me," she states, emotionless, her lashes hiding her eyes from him.

"No-"

"Not just tonight," she continues, drifting along the foot of the bed to descend to her side of the mattress, poised in the very edge, as far away from him as possible. "The last few months. I put you under so much stress, Rick. I nearly sabotaged our marriage, then brought you in on LokSat and - and I know how it weighs on you-"

"You carry just as much as me," he growls, sitting up straighter, his hand outstretched, but falling to the empty sheets when she flinches. "We share the load, Kate. That's what partners do."

"Yeah? Well, what kind of partner does that make me?" she demands, her eyes fierce with anguish, shimmering with tears that send shards of agony through his chest, his lungs, his heart. "I caused this, Castle. I've made our lives hell and then I scared you shitless and caused you to have a fucking _stroke_. What kind of wife does that make me?"

Her bottom lip is trembling now, her glittering eyes straying towards the door, and he stretches forward, grabs her hand before she can even think about it.

"Kate Beckett, come here before you give me a real heart attack," he mutters, tugging on her wrist until she acquiesces with a growl, crawling towards him with grit teeth.

"It is not _funny_ -"

"No, it isn't. Watching you sit here and blame yourself for something that has been totally out of your control is agonizing." She's sitting stiffly at his side, her eyes downcast once more, and he's sick of it, too tired and rattled from the betrayal of his body to do this. Castle crashes through the barrier of her self-doubt standing like a force field between them, drops his forehead to rest against hers, and feels her composure begin to crumble beneath the simple kiss of skins. "Kate."

"I thought you were - I thought I was going to lose you," she chokes out, her chest shuddering beneath the thin layer of her white t-shirt. "And it would have been my fault and I couldn't live with it, can't live with you dying because of me, Castle. With you dying at all, you can't-"

"Shh, no, no, I'm not," he promises her, the pattern of her breathing faltering, quickening with the rise and fall of her chest, and Rick coils an arm around his wife, draws her in to fit snug against his side and curls his body to bracket hers. "I'm not dying, Kate. I promise I'm fine, promise we'll see that at the doctor's in the morning."

"It's not just this, it's LokSat and - and me, always finding a new way to put our lives on the line when all I want is for you to be safe, for us to be happy," she gets out, her throat closing up around her words, scraping them raw before they can crawl past her lips.

"Sweetheart, you don't go looking for new ways to get us killed. They find us all on their own," he murmurs, his lips feathering at her temple, and Kate huffs, curls her fingers into the neck of his t-shirt. "Kate, listen to me. We're going to fix this. I'm going to take a step back from the P.I business, from working cases at the precinct, and we'll just focus on LokSat for now. Focus on us."

"LokSat is too dangerous, you-"

"No," he silences her, not willing to back down on this. "I'm already in and I'm not stepping out now. The reason my body went into shut down mode tonight was because I pushed too hard, wasn't getting enough rest or proper nutrition. At least that's what the medic said. That doesn't mean I need to stay at home, laid up in bed all day, Beckett. It just means I have to find a better way of balancing."

Kate's arms wrap around his torso, her cheek at his collarbone, the harsh throb of her heart at his ribcage.

"And honestly, I think you should do the same. Learn how to balance with me, probably make both of our lives a lot easier," he hums, stroking his fingers through her hair, tracing the ladder of her spine through her shirt.

"Not a bad idea," she concedes, her breath hot at the hollow of his throat. "I'm tired, Castle. I'm so tired."

He knows she doesn't mean physically, though her body slumps against his and exhaustion taints her tone, but he eases them down into a lying position anyway, twines their limbs in an intricate web and cradles her close until she releases a breath of contentment.

"Just rest with me then," he murmurs, his lips skimming her hairline.

"And I'm sorry again for-"

"Nearly scaring me to death."

He smirks into her forehead even as she pinches his waist, huffs her exasperation against his chin.

"Not funny."

"Kinda funny." Even though it wasn't, the expression of horror and gut wrenching grief that had claimed her face as he'd collapsed to the floor with her had been far from funny, the panic that had consumed her eyes in those few minutes had been painful for him to witness. But her lips are curled against his skin now, the rigid tension in her bones finally dissipating as her body sinks deeper into the embrace of his, and Castle tightens his arms around her. "I love you, Kate. And I'm not going anywhere."

His wife sighs out the last of her guilt, her fears and her worries for the night, and nuzzles her face into his neck. "Love you too, Castle."

With her body in his arms and her words in his ear, he finds rest.


End file.
